Feedback - Operation: Undermine

[Thoon]

Something isn't right in Lordsmarch Plaza.

Coin Lord Varen Lassite, in Lordsmarch Palace would like you to investigate some strange sounds heard in the plaza recently. Find him and then run the quest 'Operation: Undermine' and let us know what you think of it.

After running the quest for a bit, take some time to give us feedback by copying and pasting the following questions and posting your responses after each.

• How long did it take you to complete this quest?
• Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?
• Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?
• Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?
• What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?
• Please make additional comments here:

[The_Cataclysm]

Tried it solo with a cleric hireling on a level 12 Warforged Fighter. Made it to the minefield before dying. With no fire resist I was pretty much as good as dead in that part.

Before that, loved the set-up. I like the the explosive charges are improved when used by a mechanic. The earth elementals popping up after using them were a nice touch. I noticed that in the room where you pick up the explosive charges for the first time, the rumble that blocks the shrine area can be jumped over with ease to get access to the shrine before using the exposives.

[Althotas]

Ran thru it on a high level for fun. The graphics were great. The demolition requirement to get thru really works plus the surprises when you blow up the blockages. The shrines were spaced nicely I thought. Oh and imagine my surprise when Rhyalite popped as I made the turn for a much needed shrine, very nice touch. And the Indiana Jones trick in the one tunnel was a surprise as well. The mine field was rough if you do not take the easy way thru it. And kaboomb's dialog was funny. Overall I think this was a well done fun quest to play thru. Good job to the Devs on this one!

[butlerfamilywa]

40 Mins first run through, 10 2nd run, I'm sure I can speed it up, expect for the waiting on the explosives..

Great fun, good laughs, and great story line with a twist with the elementals.. I like how they get mad when you blow stuff up

Great job

2 Chests seems about right for this quest

Again I have no toons at level on lamannia, so unknown on exp reward.

*edit*

Elemental Named keeps respawning after a certain amount of time.. is this wai?

[Dark-Star]

Very creative and clever quest, well done.

Rhyolite was stuck in his room and could not come out, was easy to pick him off with a bow. May want to widen the area to the chest and shrine.

Similarly, if you run past the earth elementals, they also get stuck in the shaft, wai?

Long but fun quest, great surprises, especially the IJ portion. Like the others, a bit light on the xp.

[Yoshikata]

* How long did it take you to complete this quest?
23 minutes on normal with my level 14 Wizard
* Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?
Yes the story was easy to understand.
* Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?
I loved the new skins on the Earth Elementals.
* Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?
Eh maybe, it'd be for loot more likely then the experience. Didn't get any interesting loot though.
* What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?
XP was alright there's just better quests to run at level and I didn't get any interesting loot, so hard to say.
* Please make additional comments here:

[Ovrad]

• How long did it take you to complete this quest?
  A: Not sure maybe 20 mins, normal quest time I suppose.
  
• Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?
  A: Easy to understand. Really enjoyable and nice variety of new elements (I'll admit I was laughing like a madman at the boulder)
  
• Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?
  A: Superb visuals, really immersive and really awesome gameplay elements. Terrific job here.
  
• Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?
  A: Of course
  
• What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?
  A: Can't really tell, since I was on a level 20.
  
• Please make additional comments here:
  A: -The explosives are probably a bit overpowered. When you lay them yourself, it's fine since you know to get away. But at the boss, I saw he was running away dropping mines, being an lv 20 monk on normal it didn't matter much to me so I ran after him. Then he dropped an explosive... BOOM about 650 damage no save. Instant-death to me. Of course, if you ran the quest before you'll know to stay out of the way, but it could be an instant party-wipe and quest fail for first timers.
  
  -The mine field could probably have a few less mines in it. It seems like every step I had 2 mines blow up in my face.
  
  -The boss got stuck while running away at one point, he was running into another kobold. Killing that kobold made him resume his getaway but kinda broke the immersion a bit.
  
  -Oh and one last thing, for some reason half those earth elementals instantly disappeared when killed, instead of playing a death animation.

[Osma77]

How long did it take you to complete this quest?
Honestly, i almost never pay attention. 30-45?

Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?
Easy to understand, and yes intresting, although very very linear.

Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?
Yes, it was a mine. Actually, reminded me of one of the Donkey Kong games on a mine level.

Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?
Possibly, depending on if a few things are adjusted.

What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?
Was playing with a level 20, so no idea on exp. Loot was fairly sad since we couldnt kill the boulder quite quickly enough, and nothing named dropped.

Please make additional comments here:
Many Many comments.
1: i absoultly loved the explosive charges. Since i was a mechanic 2 rogue, i just set up a charge and took out the named earth elemental. made my wizard laugh.

2: On the bridge section, right before the boulder, there is an insta-death drop. If you walk too far towards the edge, and fall over, you die, period. Happily you repop near the shrine, but that is a bit of a suprise. (thought the edge was just dark, like many of the walls.). It might be a good idea for the DM to make a comment on how far down it is (if he did, i didn't notice it.)

3: The rope at the end of the quest, next to the chests, did not work. It should be useable, letting you out of the dungeon.

4: The boulder was fantastic, but i dont see it being destroyed unless a) you are prepared and set a charge down the tunnel (with good timing, it should take out the rolling boulder), b) you have a few archers in the party (repeating crossbow almost killed it, but ran out of time, mainly due to problems, see below), or c) you get really lucky and somone is either fast enough to keep up with it, or the melees can do enough damage in one hit to take it down. On elite, i dont see any of the above happening easily.

5: One of the optionals, cascade i think, didnt pop. It may be that we messed up in something, since i noticed that the optional notice appeared near the shrine where an underground river was located, but it might also be a bug. The wizard used a fireball and blew up the barrels in the center of the wooden floor.

6: Speaking as a mechanic rogue, i know it is blasphomy to say this, but there are too many freaking traps. I disarmed 13 traps before the other party member gave up on me and told me to just jump over them all. While i realise that you are SUPPOSED to jump over them all (or have a great reflex and alot of time on your hands), disableing them counts towards your ingenious debalitation. I dont have a clue how many you need to get full exp bonus from it, but i doubt that many parties will be willing to wait around, since a full party of rogues would take 10 min to disarm them all. That of course assumes that you dont take a half step too far. The traps radius of detection is just BARELY smaller then the distance required to target them. You have to get close enough to work on them, but not too close, which while realistic, means that many of them are probably going to blow up in your face. And i didn't check, but if each one uses up a thieves tool, you will easily run out of your stash unless you carry half of a page of them.

I would suggest one of the two following changes:
a) Reduce the number of traps you need for ID exp bonus. 10 for the first, 15 for the second, and 20 for the third. There are WELL over 10 traps not even counting the ones in the minefield, so that shouldn't be hard at all, yet that is still more traps then you find in most quests.
b) follow the lead of frame job and set it up as a repeating optional: 500 exp for every 10 traps disarmed.
In addition, create an extra chest at the end that only appears if you have disarmed 50 traps. This, combined with the exp bonuses, will more then make up for the time spent disarming them all. (if nothing else, the party can just jump the minefield while the rogue stays back and disarms for a few min. )

7: Rogues would be really happy if you did the following adjustment: mine traps can be, based on your mechanic level, picked up.
If disarmed, mine traps have a 15% chance of being disabled without being ruined, allowing you to pick them up.
This chance increases to 25% if you have Mechanic I.
This chance increases to 40% if you have Mechanic II.

On normal, traps picked up would be equal to the lowest trap type (its been a while, but lets say that is 10d6). On hard they would be the second level (20d6) and on elite the "average" trap (30d6). On epic, they would be the best type of trap (50d6 iirc).

If this was done, not only would people be more likely to attempt to disarm the minefield, but some rogues would actually go BACK to disarm it after the quest was over.

Final note: again, i am sad to report that repeating crossbows are still buggy as an ant farm. On the first quest i tried - the seige one - my icy bursted metaline repeating crossbow of pure good worked just fine, blasting foes apart 3 shots at a time. Once i got inside this quest, it went back to 1-2 shots. The third shot didn't disapear, it never fired. When 3 shots fire, i get click, click, click/clank. In this mine, in the harbor, and in the final quest, my main weapon consistantly either did click/clank, or click, click/clank. almost never all 3 shots. Suprisingly, when i switched to another weapon (wounding heavy repeater) it worked fine on that weapon, but switching back didnt help.

[butlerfamilywa]

If you are in stealth mode, and have a decent move silently.. you can walk right over the traps without triggering them, just like in made to order.

[SisAmethyst]

• How long did it take you to complete this quest?
  I didn't really take care of the time as I was exploring so probably 30 minutes I guess.
  
• Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?
  Quite easy to understand and straight forward (no maze). I loved the connection to some movies like 'Indiana Jones' or the love to the detail like the dead Medusa
  
• Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?
  I love the rocky look of the Earth Elements and the animation+sounds when they break apart. Its really a bombastic scene
  
• Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?
  Definitely
  
• What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?
  Around 3K XP is I guess Ok for a Quest that is that straight forward, but I can't really measure as I ran it on a capped character. However it can't compete with the 5K from the Gianthold Quest so the question is if we get some nice named loot e.g. from Rhyolite (didn't pulled anything).
  
• Please make additional comments here:
  • First time the final explosive blow me away (+600 damage) which compared with the previous minefield experience was a big surprise. On the other side realistic as I directly ran in the center of the explosion following the boss. In a second attempt as I noticed that he is running off, I directly shortcuted back to the entrance of the room and survived.
  • I tryed to deal with the boulder, but it is really tricky to get the timing for cracking it.
  • While on my capped char I was able to walk through the Minefield I was pretty sure that at level this wouldn't be that easy. So I found an other way to deal with the area. However this approach takes quite some time. It would be helpful if some mines trigger a chain reaction detonating nearby mines to get this room cleaned faster.
  • I have the strange impression I miss something at the second shrine with the explosive barrels positioned...
  • As already mentioned before I as well tryed to use the robe to exit the tunnel with no avail

Tried it solo with a cleric hireling on a level 12 Warforged Fighter. Made it to the minefield before dying. With no fire resist I was pretty much as good as dead in that part.

You should take a closer look at the beginning of the minefield. There may be something that helps you to deal with the area

[Adoraro]

How long did it take you to complete this quest?
20 Minutes

Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?
Yup, the screen shaking made for a nice cue for the quest. Been a while since you fought kobolds at this point so I guess it's a nice mix of enemies.

Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?
Yes, looked exactly how I'd imagine a minetunnel. The earth elementals make the later ones in the Shroud flagging quests and beyond look rather bland, maybe go back and update them?The named earth elemental was huge and was hard to see the whole of him even when zoomed all the way out.
Hinting that it would be a bad idea to fall off is not very helpfull (it encouraged me to try). Maybe put invisible walls all around it apart from the area where the boulder would knock you down into it?

Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?
Yes, the instadeath explosions in the endfight was somewhat of a pain but Kaboom gives ample warning not to follow him which makes it ok, I guess. But who reads what a kobold writes anyhow? I am hoping that his banter will be voiced before the final release.

What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?
5K for a 20 minute quest is kinda low in my opinion.

Please make additional comments here:
I loved how the Lordsmarch Plaza area changed depending on how far in the chain I was. (the minetunnel entrance appearing)

[Wurmwood]

* How long did it take you to complete this quest?
about 20 minutes with a 12 rogue mechanic
* Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?
Yes, very clear, although at first I didn't realize that I was supposed to use the charges to blow up the rock debris blocking further progress down the tunnels
* Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?
Yes, and I especially loved that whenever a charge went off, the cave shook/dust fell from ceiling
* Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?
Oh yes, I plan on ransacking all my toons
* What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?
Loot table could be bumped up a bit, perhaps some grenade items? 3 use charge usable outside quest, weaker than the ones in the quest obviously
* Please make additional comments here:
I was able to get Rhyalite to spawn multiple times and then bug out. When I first approached, I used one charge to clear the way to shrine, he spawned, he got stuck, whittled him down to zero. When back around to get more charges, set the charge on the other rock debris area to clear the way to the rest of the quest. When the elder rock elementals spawned, I ran back to shrine area and Rhyalite was alive again. So I ran back down the tunnel, towards the beginning of the quest, came back and the way to the shrine was completely blocked. He didn't spawned after that, it was just solid wall

Oh, and using the droamm charges to kill kaboom = Genius (I love you)

[Claver]

2: On the bridge section, right before the boulder, there is an insta-death drop. If you walk too far towards the edge, and fall over, you die, period. Happily you repop near the shrine, but that is a bit of a suprise. (thought the edge was just dark, like many of the walls.). It might be a good idea for the DM to make a comment on how far down it is (if he did, i didn't notice it.)

There is DM warning text, it appeared across the middle of the screen for me.

Once the DM narration is recorded, there will be an audible warning as well for those who have the narration turned up.

[testing1234]

* How long did it take you to complete this quest?
not sure 15-30minutes.
a pretty fast quest first time around
* Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?
was mostly chatting and checking gameplay combat logg, got no clue what story is
* Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?
visually this was amazing, very impressed
* Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?
yes this my favorite of the new quests together with end quest
* What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?
people will not run this for exp, guessing it will be a challenge for new players
* Please make additional comments here:
great looking, fun gameplay, nice enemies, extra +for the mines everyone in party loved the mines
this gets a 4 out of 5 thumbs up

[Claver]

Good quest, and an interesting design. It seemed like it would be easier to solo than to complete with a full party of zergers. I ran on casual on a 6/6 paladin/ranger. This is an archers paradise. I could pull kobolds over the land mines to detonate them at a distance. The miners were so intent on their work that I could paralyze them one at a time without aggroing the adjacent miners.


Good idea to have a quest to showcase trap making now that it is in the game. Cool that Kaboom is dangerous to kill using conventional means. I enjoyed setting traps for him and luring him to his death. Why not have some powerful mines drop as quest rewards; they need not be as powerful as 1000 pts detonate charges and its ok if they are rogue exclusive. It would help jump start interest in trap making; something that took a hit because it was initially too weak to justify crafting (and some would argue still needs adjusting).


I killed myself initially with a set of charges near Rhyolite. The Earth elementals prevented me from backing away; good decision to locate a shrine nearby. I thought I'd return after I completed the quest to go for the optional of defeating Rhyolite. I was surprised and disappointed that both he and chest were gone. Is this a bug?


I defeated Rock Wall easily enough on casual. Do we really need two named Earth Elemental optional bosses in the same quest? Too late now probably but next time, go for a little more variety with different monster types. At least have the art department try to differentiate the two; maybe Rock Wall can be made of alabaster or have a flecks of gold.


Great comments from kobolds "we get bonus from killing you", "we need munchie break". Little things like this set DDO above the pack.


In the hallway where you dodge a boulder (happens so quick I jumped out of the way and missed it) I had set off a demolition charge earlier for fun to kill some gnoll warchanters and archers, etc. Apparently, I didn't kill them all. As I was running back up the hall, an armored Ogre?? was hiding to the side in the darkness. He waits till I pass and then jumps out and yells what I swear sounds like "Booo". I'd like to believe it's improve A.I.

I didn't expect the quest to start right away when I entered. The sink hole in the plaza surprised me and left me scrambling as invaders poured in. I was glad to have the guards for support. I like the reuse of space that has been previously visited and the occasional help of guards as "hirelings". This was a nice prelude to the quest.


The section with mines also broke up the flow of the tunnels nicely. I have poor super mario skills but had little problem hoping from platform to platform and rather enjoyed figuring out where to go next without setting off a mine. Any excuse to use stealth is nice as was the tension of hoping around with archers firing everywhere once I finally made a mistake.


Bonus points Turbine for having us blow a hole in the floor. I asked for something similar in my feedback on Eyes of Stone from Update 7. Thank you for listening to the community. You obviously put that in there just for me. Proof that you guys really do listen.



[*]How long did it take you to complete this quest? I spent around an hour taking a slow methodical solo approach. I'm sure it could be done more quickly with a zerging party with fire resistance.

[*]Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting? It's self evident when yo walk up to the quest giver and you hear the ground shaking that somebody is tunneling under the fortress. This ties in from update 7. You are introduced to the villian Kaboom within the first few rooms who you give chase throughout the dungeon; it is a very obvious but enjoyable plot. Hard to imagine more simplistic story telling that would not be insulting.

[*]Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme? The mine looked very much like a mine. I liked the dark patches of shadow and feared that I was about to walk into a bottomless shaft on several occasions - this was fun the first time through.

[*]Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live? Yes, I like quests that I can solo @ level 12 that don't require a solo build (warforged wizard, monk, etc). I'd enjoy trying to see all the different ways I could use the demolition charges to kill different monsters (i'm determined to kill cascade with a charge someday). This seems like the kind of quest that could play very differently with different classes or large zerg group versus small/solo parties.

[*]What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest? on casual the xp came out at around 2500 xp with optionals in the 500xp - 600 xp range. That seems adequate for casual; I would assume more for Normal (3000 with 800 for optionals)

[Sarnind]

nice quest line but reward xp is very low

[Claver]

5: One of the optionals, cascade i think, didnt pop. It may be that we messed up in something, since i noticed that the optional notice appeared near the shrine where an underground river was located, but it might also be a bug. The wizard used a fireball and blew up the barrels in the center of the wooden floor

Did you also use the explosive charges to blow a hole in the wooden floor? If you do that you can swim down into the river into a stream into an adjacent cavern. Cascade is located there.

[MrCow]

* How long did it take you to complete this quest?
25 minutes the first time.
12 minutes afterwards.

* Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?
Investigate the seismic disturbance (and chase the bomb-happy kobold).

* Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?
Yes.

* Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?
In its current incarnation, only to access Operation Siegebreaker.

* What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?
This quest is more involving and has greater risk than Summerfield and Blockade Buster, yet roughly the same or less EXP. It could do with a bump.

Loot quantity is fine.

[junior_w]

* How long did it take you to complete this quest?
25 minutes

* Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?
Yes

* Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?
I liked the skin from the Elder Earth Elementals

* Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?
If the xp raised yes

* What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?
The xp was low for a lvl 13 quest, the loot was random drops nothing exceptional.
3 chests looks ok

*Please make additional comments here:
The mine part was annoying maybe lower the number of mines.

---------------------------------------------------------
Edit: I found a new chest and got a mark

[Crazyfruit]

How long did it take you to complete this quest?

38 minutes, first time solo on casual, with a wipe/release at the end boss. I didn't realize what he was doing until a trap 1 hit my barbarian archer (even on casual with a TR'd shroud HP item)[/quote]

Do you have a clear understanding of the quest story, and was it interesting?

Yup.

Were the visuals and environment in this quest appropriate to the theme?

Loved them.

Are you likely to run this quest more than once on Live?

Will probably be a once per character, but something I'd enjoy doing. Would repeat to show it to friends and see what they think.

What do you think of the XP and loot rewards given the difficulty of the quest?

Mm... not really up to par compared to other quests. But again, going by what I saw on casual & a long first time. With practice it'd probably be a lot better.

Please make additional comments here:

I liked finding the hidden water elemental. Also liked that dying in the pit brought you to a soul stone. The rolling rock was neat, I had to use manyshot to kill it in time for the optional. Always nice to see more quest areas that tell people they should stealth through it. Sprinting barbarians can easily outrun kaboom

I really liked this quest. The designer/s and art team deserve cookies for it.